Columbus No. 3 for bedbugs

Thursday

Mar 13, 2014 at 12:01 AMMar 14, 2014 at 10:30 AM

Columbus keeps climbing in the ranks of the nation's most bedbug-infested cities, according to major pest-control companies. The city rose to No. 3 on the latest list from Orkin, which ranks metro areas by the number of bedbug treatments the company performed last year.

Rita Price, The Columbus Dispatch

Columbus keeps climbing in the ranks of the nation’s most bedbug-infested cities, according to major pest-control companies.

The city rose to No. 3 on the latest list from Orkin, which ranks metro areas by the number of bedbug treatments the company performed last year.

Terminix says bedbug-specific calls in Columbus jumped by 47 percent from January through May last year, compared with the same period in 2012. That hike was the fourth-highest, the company said.

“It should be of concern to our public officials,” said Susan Jones, an Ohio State University entomologist and bedbug expert. “It is getting worse as we speak.”

Jones and other members of the all-volunteer Central Ohio Bed Bug Task Force say the absence of public funding for bedbug awareness and eradication hampers efforts to fight what has become an epidemic.

The tenacious, blood-sucking, hard-to-kill insects inflict misery most everywhere they go. Households that can’t pay for professional extermination services are most likely to suffer, because home remedies and over-the-counter products generally don’t work well.

“Cities need to address this issue because it is a communitywide problem,” with schools, hospitals, movie theaters and other public places always at risk, Jones said. “And the state health department needs to provide guidance.”

Of the top seven cities on Orkin’s list, four areas are in Ohio. Cincinnati is No. 5, Cleveland/Akron/Canton is sixth, and Dayton is seventh.

Chicago took the top spot on Orkin’s list. The nation’s biggest city, New York, was No. 17, down from 10th place in 2012. Columbus rose three spots from 2012 to last year.

Jones said the companies have a significant presence in Ohio and in most other states.

“We have more than 300 branches throughout the country,” Terminix spokesman Brad Carmony said.

Barbara Sullivan, manager for the Senior Options program at the Franklin County Office on Aging, said the office regularly hears from elderly clients struggling with infestations.

The home-care program can’t afford a dedicated bedbug budget. But officials review cases and have provided assistance to a few Senior Options clients desperate for relief from the biting bugs.

“There’s no other public funding set aside for this,” Sullivan said.

Without science-based data, it’s hard to know whether the city really is among the most bedbug-infested, said Lonnie Alonso, owner of Columbus Pest Control.

But, he said, metro areas throughout the country are hard hit. “We haven’t seen any downturn at all.”